Mumbai University announces Rs 639.54 Cr budget: Yet to recover 150 Cr.

Education Vijay, A Rs 639.54 crore budget has been announced by the University of Mumbai for the financial year 2016-17. A surplus of Rs 63.67 crore has also been recorded in the budget for the first time in five years.Moreover, the state government and a few colleges affiliated to MU are supposed to clear dues amounting to an estimated Rs 150 crore.According to MU VC Sanjay Deshmukh, the government is supposed to pay around Rs 100 crore for salary grants, while colleges are supposed to pay Rs 50 crore towards affiliation fees. The exact due amounts could not be provided by the officials."For the past few years, the state government has been giving 75% of the total amount required for salaries, with the remaining expenses borne by the varsity. We hope that the state will give us the due amount," said Deshmukh, while refusing to call the to-be-paid-amount a "recovery".However, a university official said that the pending amount by the state government is highly likely not to be recovered and it should not have been made a part of the budget. "The vice chancellor should have written off the amount, but apparently he wants to take credit for a surplus budget," he said according to an HT report.On the payment delay regarding affiliation fees, the VC blamed both university officials and the colleges for their laxity. "The amount spent on affiliated colleges was drawn from non-plan expenditure. You cannot spend the money on something it was not appropriated for," said the official. Regular expenditures such as employee salaries are drawn from the non-plan money. Deshmukh said that the bigger budget will be used by the varsity to help students from different parts of the country and the state easily access higher education. This would be a push towards the success of Digital India and Skill India initiatives by Prime Minister Narendra Modi